Rice, Miz earn Player of the Week honors
With the kind of years that Ben Rice and Jacob Misiorowski are having, they might both want to invest in trophy cases to hold all of their new hardware, starting with the Player of the Week Awards they each took home Monday.
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Rice, who leads all Major League hitters with a .658 slugging percentage and 1.056 OPS, and leads the AL with 44 RBIs, continued his incredible start to 2026 with another blistering week at the plate, going 12-for-26 (.462) with four doubles, two triples, a home run, eight runs scored and 11 RBIs to help power the Yankees to a 5-1 road trip against the Royals and A's.
This is the first career Player of the Week Award for Rice, 27, who enjoyed a breakout with New York a year ago when he clubbed 26 homers and posted a 130 OPS+ in 138 games. His 2.2 bWAR this season already matches his output from all of 2025. He's the first Yankee to nab Player of the Week honors since Aaron Judge won the final award of 2025 on September 29.
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This is also the first Player of the Week Award for Misiorowski, the Milwaukee flamethrower who last Monday set a record by reaching 100 mph on 57 of his pitches against the Cardinals -- 10 more than anyone else since pitch tracking began 18 years ago.
After tying a career high with 12 strikeouts in seven innings vs. St. Louis while allowing just one run on two hits, the 2025 All-Star tossed seven scoreless innings with eight strikeouts vs. the Astros on Sunday. With the two wins, he improved to 5-0 with a minuscule 0.23 ERA to go along with 57 Ks and six walks in 38 1/3 innings over six May starts. Don't be surprised if he adds a Pitcher of the Month trophy to his case in the coming days.
This is the first POTW Award for Milwaukee since Isaac Collins won last August. Misiorowski is the first Brewers pitcher to win the award since Brandon Woodruff on May 31, 2021, and the third pitcher to win this season, joining José Soriano (April 13) of the Los Angeles Angels and Cristopher Sánchez (May 11) of the Philadelphia Phillies.
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Royals rookie Carter Jensen showed off some impressive athleticism behind the plate to nab the Play of the Week Award. His diving catch in foul territory on a bunt attempt on Saturday helped to end the Rangers' eighth-inning rally on a play that knocked the wind out of him.
Jensen is just the second catcher to win the award since its inception in 2019, joining the Mets' Luis Torrens, who won on June 10, 2024.